Audio: Exploring the minds and inner lives of animals

On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with an author of a new book about the minds and lives of animals – about their amazing memories and minds, how they dream, and more – and we’ll also learn what Mongabay’s newest bureau just launched in India is reporting about.

Our first guest is Sy Montgomery, the author of two dozen books for adults and kids about animals. She recently teamed up with her friend and fellow animal writer Elizabeth Marshall Thomas to write Tamed and Untamed: Close Encounters of the Animal Kind, and is here to share a few of the fascinating stories from the book with us.

Our second guest today is Sandhya Sekar, program manager for Mongabay India, who’s here to tell us about the environmental challenges India is facing and what kinds of coverage you’ll find at india.mongabay.com.

On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with the co-author of a new book about the minds and lives of animals — their memories, how we know that they dream, how some even like to get drunk — and we’ll hear all about Mongabay’s newly launched bureau in India.

Montgomery recently teamed up with her friend and fellow animal writer Elizabeth Marshall Thomas to write Tamed and Untamed: Close Encounters of the Animal Kind. The book is a collection of essays about dogs, hawks, house cats, lions, octopuses, sharks, snails, and more — and Sy Montgomery is here to share a few of the stories from the book with us.

Sekar joins us from the capital city of the southern Indian state of Kerala, where she’s based, and is here to tell us about the environmental challenges India is facing and what kinds of coverage you’ll find at india.mongabay.com.

The Mongabay Newscast is now available on Spotify! If you use that service, just look up “Mongabay Newscast” to listen to any of our previous episodes with guests like Jane Goodall, Paul Simon, or Margaret Atwood. If you don’t use Spotify, you can always hear past episodes at our website by visiting mongabay.com/podcast.